Clermont Hospital’s Pulmonology Team Using Innovative Technology for Lung Cancer Diagnosis

Mercy Health – Clermont Hospital’s pulmonology team is using an innovative technology called robotic bronchoscopy to help diagnose lung nodules earlier and more accurately.

Mercy Health physicians and pulmonologists Samir Ataya, MD, David Beck, MD, Stephen Major, MD and Muneer Al Zoby, MD of Mercy Health — East Pulmonary, Sleep and Critical Care, Clermont have trained on Auris Health’s Monarch™ Platform. They are using the platform to care for patients, with Dr. Ataya completing Clermont Hospital’s first two cases with the platform on May 4, 2022. 

The Monarch™ Platform integrates advancements in robotics, software, data science and endoscopy (the use of small cameras and tools to enter the body through its natural openings) to help pulmonologists access smaller nodules. Once there, doctors can take tissue biopsies from peripheral areas of the lung that previous tools were challenged to reach, allowing for earlier and more accurate diagnosis.

“Other diagnostic tools cannot go beyond the third or fourth generation of airways, putting smaller, potentially disease-indicating nodules beyond their reach. The robotic bronchoscope goes where other scopes cannot, reaching up to the seventh generation of an airway. Once there, we can take a tissue sample for biopsy," Dr. Ataya said.

Lung cancer has no symptoms in its early stages, which means doctors often find it at an advanced stage. More than 90 percent of people diagnosed with the disease at its most advanced stage will not survive it. While there are diagnostic options for lung cancer available currently, they have limitations in accuracy, safety or invasiveness. 

Clermont Hospital joins The Jewish Hospital – Mercy Health in using the platform, which the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) cleared for use recently. The Monarch™ Platform utilizes a familiar controller-like interface that doctors use to navigate the flexible robotic endoscope to the periphery of the lung. Combining traditional endoscopic views into the lung with computer-assisted navigation based on 3D models of the patient’s own lung anatomy, the Monarch™ Platform provides physicians with improved reach, vision and control.

Mercy Health — East Pulmonary, Sleep and Critical Care, Clermont is located at 2055 Hospital Drive, Suite 200, Batavia, Ohio 45103. For more information or to make an appointment, please call 513-735-1701.